From Fr. JC Maximilian's Desk: "The State of the Diocese - To Govern" - Resurrection Parish

April 30, 2018

by Fr. JC

One time-consuming part of the Bishop’s ministry is “governing” the Diocese. In a way, he is like a CEO of a large corporation. The Bishop guides the Diocese in an administrative way and the goal of his administration is evangelization. His is the care and responsibility for the personnel and material goods of the Diocese.

Currently there are about 200 full-time, active diocesan, religious order, and adjunct priests serving the 107 parishes in the Diocese. Many of our retired priests also keep very busy assisting at parishes on the weekends (I have some exciting news about one of those retired priests who will start coming to assist us, starting in July -- Fr. Michael O’Connor, the former pastor of Holy Name Parish). The Diocese also has 197 deacons, and over 260 women and men religious serving our people.

Last June, the Bishop ordained four men priests for the Diocese, and the month before that he ordained four men transitional deacons; they will be ordained priests this year in June. While that is not a bad number of priestly ordinations, we also average 6-7 priests who retire each year, so the number of priests continue to decline. We have 20 men in the seminary studying for the priesthood; they could really use our prayers -- that is why I started the “Praying for Vocations/Take the Icon Home for a Week” program. Please sign up for that.

In 2017 we also welcomed some new people in top administrative positions within the Diocese to assist the Bishop in his ministry “to govern.” Mr. Kevin Cimei was hired as the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Joseph Bianchi was promoted to Chief Administrative Officer, and Mrs. Terry Ginther was promoted from the Executive Director of Pastoral Life and Mission, to Chancellor of the Diocese -- the first time a woman has held that position in the Diocese of Trenton.

In January, 2017 Bishop O’Connell announced the conclusion of the “Faith in Our Future” Diocesan Planning initiative. After much prayer and discernment, he accepted the overwhelming majority of the recommendations that were made at the parish and cohort level. Since then, parishes and cohorts have begun the implementation of this plan. Here in Cohort 1 -- which are now calling the Burlington Pike Catholic Community -- we focused the first year on “stewardship” or how we can lower expenses by sharing resources and implementing an economy of scale, and on “Youth Ministry.” We are still working on our report on the progress we have made on those two goals, so I will report on them later.

To support this renewed vision for the Diocese, the Bishop brought to conclusion “Faith to Move Mountains,” a fundraising campaign to build an endowment for future ministry in the Diocese. The goal of this campaign was $75 million, and as of the end of December 2017, nearly $72 million was raised. Please continue to honor your pledges, as our parish receives 30% of the monies received by the Diocese -- since January 2017 our parish has gotten over $36,000 back from the “Faith to Move Mountains” campaign.

Lastly, currently the Diocese shows an operating deficit of over $3 million. I know that the Bishops has been reducing the size of the staff of the Chancery, but there is only so much to trim. The Annual Catholic Appeal (formerly called The Bishop’s Appeal) is used to help pay the operating expenses of the Diocese. In 2017, the Annual Catholic Appeal raised $5.8 million, which was slightly less than the goal; but many parishes were also simultaneously finishing the Faith to Move Mountains campaign. Here at Resurrection Parish, we were one of only 32 parishes in the Diocese to reach our ACA goal (and one of only two in Burlington County to do so); but we just barely did so.